HIMYM Watch: The Professor of Desire

Spoilers for last night’s How I Met Your Mother coming up after the jump:

There are episodes of HIMYM that lend themselves to detailed analysis, and there are those that lend themselves to a Philip Roth reference and a few bullet points. This enjoyable but slight episode, “Robin 101,” was the latter:

* You would expect an episode devoted to teaching us all about Robin would deliver the Canadianisms, and this one did not disappoint on that score. My favorite: “Butterscotch is to Canadian women what chocolate is to American women.” I’d have guessed the Cadbury Caramilk bar, but what do I know about love?

* Meanwhile, no episode involving Ted’s didacticism would be complete without him getting a comeuppance, so it was good to find out that Robin had been lying to him about Lefty liking it.

* Fans of Community will notice this was the second network-TV Dead Poets Society joke in a week. Which sitcom will be next?

* Very little payoff from the B-plot about Mabel the barrel, but one question: Why would Marshall carry a full barrel upstairs to the apartment only to announce that he’s going to take it back downstairs to leave it on the sidewalk?